Looking for a free status page service to host separately from my main app

The best approach is to use a static site generator hosted on a separate platform like GitHub Pages or Netlify, pulling data from a free external monitoring API like UptimeRobot or StatusCake. This separates your status page from your primary infrastructure, ensuring it remains accessible during your app's outages. Static sites are reliable, cost-effective, and can be updated automatically via webhooks or scheduled builds. The core concept is decoupling monitoring data collection from status page presentation, using APIs to connect them.

A simple method is using a Jekyll or Hugo theme designed for status pages. For example, with UptimeRobot's free plan offering a public JSON API, you can configure a static site to fetch and display this data. First, create a new repository on GitHub with a status page theme like "cstate." Then, set up a GitHub Action to periodically fetch the monitoring data and rebuild the site.

name: Update status page

on:

  schedule:

    - cron: '*/5 * * * *'

  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:

  build:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:

      - name: Fetch UptimeRobot data

        run: curl -s https://api.uptimerobot.com/v2/getMonitors?api_key=${{ secrets.API_KEY }} > data/status.json

      - name: Build and deploy site

        uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v3

        with:

          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

          publish_dir: './public'

Store your API key as a repository secret. Netlify offers similar build hooks. This setup ensures your status page is hosted independently and updates automatically from your monitoring service.